Help With Upgrades - HiDef Playback Wanted

[Liquidd]

Hi. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I couldn't decide where to submit this.

I'm hoping to make some improvements to my PC so that it will perform some HiDef playback, and I think I'm almost there, but the video still plays a little choppy, so I was looking for advice on what I can upgrade/change to get me over the hump.

I don't play games on my computer, fyi.

I've got a Samsung with DVI input to play the HiDef on.

AMD Athlon XP 2600+
XGI Volari V3 128mb Video Card
Realtek AC'97 Audio for VIA (R) Audio Controller
512mb DIMM - Max 1GB - Am in the process of getting another 512mb
XP Service Pack 2
100GB & 80GB IDE HDD's

Advice? Anything else I should list?
Thanks

 

[LNCPapa]

If you're talking about high definition video the only things I can see that I'd change are your processor and your RAM. I'd give it a test first to see if the RAM you're getting makes enough of a difference - if not I'd swap out that processor for a faster one. I have tried playing HD Windows Media on my XP 2600 and it skips a bit on that machine - whereas the same video will play perfectly fine on any of my 2.8+ Ghz machines. With the size of the drives you listed I can only assume they're 7200 rpm and that's plenty for just playback.

 

[Liquidd]

Changing my processor.. I thought it might come to that..

How high can I go?
What else would I have to change if I changed my processor?